


Down to the River (& Other Drabbles)

by WillyShakesqueer13



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (probably), Action/Adventure, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm just experimenting, Just a lot of different things, One Shot, Team TARDIS, Team as Family, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-01 12:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16765171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillyShakesqueer13/pseuds/WillyShakesqueer13
Summary: (A series of oneshots, where I will post a variety of drabbles, mostly of team bonding)The Doctor loves her new companions. So much, and so deeply, and for so, so many reasons.





	1. Down to the River

**Author's Note:**

> Down to the River - The Doctor and Ryan take a walk together in the countryside

He tried not to move, not to draw attention to himself as footsteps echoed up the corridor, past the door he’d left ajar. From his place on the bed, all Ryan saw of the Doctor was the flash of her powder-blue coat as she passed at speed. For a moment, he thought he’d got away with it, before her footsteps faltered and her head appeared around the door. 

Ryan’s heart sank when she fixed him with her bright, knowing eyes, all too aware of the sad, drawn look he couldn’t quite wipe off his face. He could only stare back and await the awkward question.

“I’m going for a walk. Wanna come?” They weren’t the words Ryan was expecting to hear. The Doctor gave him a sideways smile. “Unless you wanna stay in yer bedroom all afternoon.”

Ryan shrugged. Maybe it was better than sitting here doing nothing.

She waited until he had laced his shoes and thrown a jacket on, and together, the pair headed for the console room, towards the front doors, matching one another’s steps. 

“This is cool and all, but where are we actually gonna walk?” Ryan asked. It occurred to him that the last time he’d checked, they were still orbiting an ice moon. By way of answer, the Doctor reached towards the TARDIS doors with a grin and threw them open.

Ryan stepped outside, involuntarily taking a deep breath of crisp, cold air. They were parked up in a layby on an old country road, the tall Cornish hedges encasing arable pasture on either side. Over one, he could just about glimpse a couple of ancient-looking brown horses grazing, wrapped up in their warm winter rugs. Spinning on his heel, Ryan glanced over the hedge behind him, rocking onto his toes for a better look. 

The valley spread below them was a mad mixture of farmland and barren scrub. He could see a couple of brick chimneys rising from one side of a hill, the earth around them churned up beyond repair by industry; layers and layers of alien-looking red rocks. On the other side, an entirely different kind of wasteland clung below a scraggly copse of furs. Covered in a fuzz of grass so pale, it reminded him of the old Warhammer sets he used to gaze through the shop window at, and of the kind of stuff he’d once seen Graham spreading around the tracks of his model train set. 

“What did that used to be?” He glanced at the Doctor, who seemed more interested in his reaction than the scenery itself. 

“Mining country. Tin, copper, minerals. Welcome to Cornwall.”

“Nah, I got that. I meant that one,” Ryan jabbed his finger towards the pale side of the hill.

“Oh, that? Used to be landfill; now they’re trying to clear it up again. Turning the methane into energy, planting trees, you know. Come on, I’ve got something to show you,” The  
Doctor grinned, striding off down a narrow, uneven pathway that wound tightly between the high hedges, heading downhill. 

The thick, scrubby gorse bushes towered over even Ryan’s head, and their tiny yellow flowers filled the air with a sweet, heady, floral scent. Ahead, the Doctor took a left.  
They didn’t speak. Instead, as the path widened, the pair took to walking side-by-side in comfortable silence. At least, it seemed comfortable, until Ryan glanced across and found the same pinch between the Doctor’s eyebrows that he felt sure lay between his own. Shoving his hands deeper into his pockets, he tried to silently convey to her his support. If  
only she were telepathic.

The path joined a driveway and continued downhill, the gravel loose and crunchy underfoot. Bare winter trees arched above them, and Ryan was sure he could hear the trickle of water nearby. From behind a hedge, another horse watched them pass curiously. 

A brook wound out of the hedge quite suddenly, bubbling and trickling, carving a deep route through the gorse and scrub beside the track, and as they followed beside it a little further, they found the water spilling out through a make-shift rock bridge and fording the road. The water was so clear and still, it was as though no vehicle or person had passed this way for centuries. 

As Ryan watched in growing confusion, the Doctor forged on towards the river. Every step, he expected her to stop, to realise where she was heading, and by the time her boot plunged into the ford, it was too late to grab her shoulder. 

She didn’t seem to notice, though. Or, at least, she didn’t seem to mind. He watched her saunter out into the middle, where the river breached the top of her boots and poured down inside. Her coat skimmed the surface, the tiny wavelets catching the hem and beginning to climb the fabric.

The Doctor turned back to him, an eyebrow raised in that stupid, teasing, sideways smirk she liked to pull whenever she did something weird on purpose. Ryan just stared at her, saying nothing, because really, what was there to say?

“Don’t fancy it?” She grinned mischievously.

“… You’re actually bonkers,” Ryan replied. 

The Doctor seemed to take a moment, gazing into the swirling waters around her feet. “Sometimes, when I get too bogged down thinking ‘bout stuff, I just like to get out. Remind myself to come out of my own head once in a while, you know?”

He couldn’t think of an answer for that. There was something so deep, so profound about the way the cheekiness seeped out of her smile, leaving it contemplative and content. The weak sunlight was catching the water and reflecting in her eyes; those old, wise eyes. For a moment, she stood there unreachable, older and wiser than time itself.  
Then, she shifted her weight and kicked the water, sending a huge arc of droplets his way. Ryan ducked out in time, watching them splatter into the dust. 

“Hey!”

The Doctor laughed, throwing her head back. “C’mon!”

“No way!” Ryan replied, looking between the water and his favourite white trainers. Then again, they were getting pretty scrappy. When he looked up again, the Doctor was taking ridiculously exaggerated steps, like a child playing monsters, and slamming her feet into the water, letting it fly in great waves up her trouser legs. When she caught him looking, she beckoned again, then took an enormous leap, the ripples from which touched the toe of his trainers. 

Whatever, he thought to himself, and took a tentative step in, then another. The water seeped through the thin fabric, through the holes growing near his toes, and it was bitterly, icy cold. Ryan hissed through his teeth. It felt awful, and yet somehow, it felt good. His heart hammered, his blood began to race. He felt alive.

When he looked up, the Doctor was chuckling to herself, her hands in her pockets. Her eyes sparkled. 

“You’re crazy!” He yelped, “It’s bloody freezin’”

It only made her laugh more. He tried to kick a wave her way, carefully, in case he lost his balance, and she dodged out of the way, taken by surprise. The loose gravel beneath her feet moved and she staggered with a shriek, throwing a hand down to catch herself and soaking her sleeve in the process. 

It was Ryan’s turn to guffaw as the Doctor gave a shrill groan of annoyance, then fixed him with a gaze of mock-fury. 

“Alright, you got me,” she shrugged. 

Carefully, Ryan waded closer to where she stood, and she rocked back on her heels, scuffing her toes into the gravel beneath the surface. They stood together for a while, looking down at the shapes the water made around their ankles.

Ryan sighed heavily. “It’s kinda weird, travelling with you. Most of the time, we’re so busy, there’s no time to think. And then, when we finally have a minute to breathe…”

“You think of her.” The Doctor nodded knowingly.

“It doesn’t feel weird without Nan here, you know? ‘Cos she was never part of it for long, and every day is so different. But when I go home… Well, I don’t even wanna think about it.”

The Doctor gazed quietly at him for a long time, measuring his face, like she was trying to read his mind. “It’s never easy to lose someone, especially someone as awesome and as close as your Nan. It hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. And sometimes, you have to just let it.”

The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and all of a sudden, Ryan realised how cold the water was getting around his legs. 

“I don’t want it to hurt no more,” He mumbled. 

Before he knew it, the Doctor had clasped his shoulders tightly, comfortingly. “I admire you, Ryan Sinclair. You’re so strong, you’re so brave: You’re really, really amazing.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow at her, but her face showed nothing but sincerity. Despite the tears prickling behind his eyelids, he managed a small smile; sort of an embarrassed laugh.  
A shiver ran up the Doctor’s spine when she released Ryan’s shoulders, and she cast a glance at the sky before looking back at him. 

“TARDIS?”

“TARDIS.”


	2. Quiet Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yaz visits the library in some down-time to change a book and meets the rest of Team TARDIS relaxing. The calm atmosphere is soon to be shattered, however. (Trigger Warning: depictions of sleep paralysis)

Yaz loved these quiet times, the in-between times. Of course, the adventures were beautiful, exciting, life-changing, but the calm moments, where the TARDIS hung in the vortex and the lights dimmed into a night cycle, they seemed just as special.

She let her feet guide her through the corridors, an old, well-thumbed copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ clasped in her hands. She'd read the story a thousand times before, of course, but she'd never had this copy, filled to bursting with little margin notes. That was the thing about the Doctor's library - all their previous incarnations had collected a copy of every book they'd ever read, and every one was filled with all their thoughts, all scribbled on the pages in their various handwritings.

She was sure she was getting to know their characters by now; she'd asked on occasion which face she was reading with today. More often than not, even the Doctor didn't rightly know, but, scanning a couple of scribbles, she could usually tell you: 'oh, that's number four, he had the curly writing', 'number nine, that one, his hands were trembly'; 'Ah, yes, number twelve - always such a downer, till he wasn't'.

Yaz finally came to the door of the library, and gently pressed her hand to the keypad, letting it register her touch and standing back as the doors lazily opened. The expansive room glowed red and gold, bookshelves lining the walls and stretching up and up towards a huge glass dome, through which galaxies shone. She'd never quite worked out whether they were real or projections, but regardless, they were beautiful. Platforms criss-crossed above her head, forming a mezzanine floor, and a single gold spiral staircase rose from the centre of the room to connect the two.

Yaz breathed in the rich scent of thousands of years of paper. Musty, but sweet, and comforting. Her favourite bit was the quiet - the acoustics swallowed nearly all sound, leaving just the gentle hum of the TARDIS engines wrapping around her like a warm blanket. Although today, she could also hear soft voices drifting to her from the other end of the room.

Kicking off her pumps and letting her feet soak up the underfloor heating, she followed the murmuring sound down the length of the library, passing ancient wooden tables decorated with strange circular runes in delicate gold paint. Yaz only wished she could read them. Maybe the Doctor could one day tell her what they meant. Further in, and ducking under the spiral staircase, she caught sight of two figures side by side on an old, worn sofa, leaning forward to pore over something before them. What it was, she couldn't tell: her view was blocked by their seat's twin, the back of which faced her. She was sure she could see a third pair of feet resting on its arm.

Graham looked up as he heard her approach, his face breaking into a bright grin. "Alright, cockle?"

Yaz frowned at his whisper until Ryan, sat beside him, nodded his head towards the other sofa. As she looked, she smirked, surprised to find the Doctor stretched out across it, fast asleep. On her chest, a book lay open, half-read.

"What did you do to her?" Yaz joked, settling herself on the floor at the head of the low coffee table. Ryan and Graham had spread out over it the pieces of a puzzle, only barely started.

"She was reading, then she wasn't. Not our fault," Ryan shrugged, laughter brightening his eyes.

Yaz's gaze lingered on the sleeping Doctor. She couldn't remember a time when they'd seen her voluntarily sleeping. She'd passed out a couple times, sure, but this time, she just looked so peaceful. Casting her eyes down, Yaz looked at the book she was reading.

"To be fair, Of Mice and Men sent me to sleep, too."

Ryan snorted with mirth, pinching his nose to try to control himself. Graham, on the other hand, looked almost offended.

"Are you trying to tell me you didn't enjoy it? One of my favourites, that one!"

Rather than argue the point that she prefered books where women had even the slightest bit of autonomy (not to mention ones that avoided gloves full of Vaseline), Yaz gazed down at the puzzle Ryan and Graham were working on. She couldn't tell the picture at all, although it might have helped if it had had more than half the edge pieces connected. Pinching one between her fingers, she marvelled at the shape; a sort of hexigon, with hooked edges that interlocked on all sides.

"Cool puzzle. What's the picture?"

"Dunno, but it looks pretty alien to me," Ryan shrugged, handing her the box lid, on which was engraved a picture of a mound of machinery mounted on caterpillar tracks. It looked all the world like something out of _Mortal Engines._

"Nice," she nodded, then looked across the pieces again. "How do you even know which way up they go?"

"You don't. Think that might be the point, actually," Graham smiled.

They worked together in comfortable silence for a while, building up the edge, then taking it apart and rebuilding it when they realised that it, too, was meant to be hexagonal. The picture was slowly taking shape, and the TARDIS continued to hum warmly through the snippets of conversation and muffled, breathy laughs at the Doctor's occasional mumbles and snores.

They had just managed to put together the top of the odd machine when Yaz felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She couldn't explain it - something just suddenly felt wrong. Just as she tried to say something, a noise caught her attention, and she looked around towards the other couch.

The Doctor's whole body had gone rigid. As her friends watched on in horror, her breathing grew faster and shallower, harsher and harsher. Yet, somehow, she didn’t open her mouth, keeping it pressed firmly shut, every few breaths coming out as a whimper or a grunt, like she was shouting for help but couldn’t make a sound.

“Doctor?” Graham tried to rouse her, turning to his friends in silent terror when it didn’t work.

Yaz scrambled to her feet, approaching cautiously, the other two rising with her. “Doctor!” She shouted, louder this time, but it did nothing. The alien continued to heave for breath, muscles straining ineffectually against some unseen force.

Out of the corner of her eye, Yaz spotted Ryan’s eyes washing up and down the Doctor’s body, and she followed his gaze to where her hands were grasping at her shirt, sluggish and deliberate, as if in slow motion. Down again, her feet were paddling in slow, painful circles as though moving through soup.

“Shake her, Yaz!” Ryan said.

“What?!”

“You gotta shake her!” He fixed his frantic gaze on her. Yaz nodded and dropped to one knee beside the Doctor, grasping her shirts firmly and shaking hard.

“Doctor, wake up!” She used her best police-woman shout, steady and loud.

The response was immediate. The Doctor’s eyes flew open, wild with horror. She shot upright with a great gasp of breath, her body collapsing in on itself, her frantic hands grasping Yaz’s wrists and wrestling them off her. Yaz obliged, pulling back, giving the woman space to calm down.

The Doctor’s hands flew over her body, patting herself down from sternum to stomach. Then, like a light switch flicked, the energy disappeared, and her eyes rolled as she fell back down against the cushions, gasping.

“…Doctor?” Yaz breathed, as calmly as she could.

Eyes flickering, the Doctor’s head rolled towards her. “Hmm?”

“You alright, petal?” Graham had come over all grand-paternal, shuffling his way out from behind the table. The Doctor fumbled towards them with one hand, the other finding its way to her forehead. Yaz caught hold of it, squeezing it between both of hers.

“Don’t let me sleep…” The request was barely audible. Graham and Yaz shuffled closer.

“Doctor, what just happened?” Yaz was asking.

It was Ryan who answered her. “Looked to me like sleep paralysis.”

Graham frowned, “you what?”

“Sleep paralysis? You gotta know what that is.” When Graham and Yaz shook their heads, he continued. “It’s, like, when you wake up and you can’t move. Thought it was pretty obvious.” The Doctor was watching him through heavily lidded eyes. “And that one looked proper nasty.”

“ _Proper_ nasty,” The Doctor slurred, unconsciously running her hands over her stomach again. “Which is why you can’t let me go back to sleep.”

“But it might not happen again,” Yaz reasoned gently.

“It will. Over and over, until I get up. Yaz, make me get up.”

Looking confused, the young woman cocked her head at Ryan, before looking back. “How?”

The only response she got was a mumble; it was clear the Doctor was drifting off again. Yaz looked at Graham, panicked. “What does she mean?!”

“Well, I dunno, how would you get someone else up? Your sister, say.”

Yaz raised her eyebrows with amusement. “I think if I dragged her off the sofa by her feet, I might not be allowed back on the TARDIS.” Instead, Yaz went for something a little more gentle, clasping both the Doctors wrists and giving her a tug. “Come on, up you get.”

The Doctor’s grumbled response was far too much like a tired toddler for her team not to crack a smile. Yaz pulled again, harder this time, until she was lifting the Doctor upright, and only then did she begin to comply, albeit reluctantly.

“You can’t look at me like that – you told me to get you up!” When the Doctor looked up from behind a curtain of blonde hair, she looked dishevelled and tired beyond measure, enough to wipe the smile from Yaz’s face. “Seriously, are you alright?”

“No, I’m not alright.” Her head drooped, meeting Yaz’s shoulder, and the younger woman wrapped her arms around her in a soft hug. It was brief, but it was enough, and when the Doctor raised her head again, Yaz took her by the elbows and held her until she was standing up.

“How about now?”

The alien shrugged, stretching her arms up as high as they would go, then shuffling, head bowed, around the back of the sofa and across the room until she came to the spiral staircase. There, she dropped herself onto the steps and pressed her face into her hands.

Yaz looked at Ryan questioningly. He’d known what was happening, worked it out faster than she had, a speed only someone with experience could. He shrugged his shoulders, avoiding her gaze like he wasn’t ready for the conversation.

She sighed, deciding on a new track. “Alright, Mr Expert – what now?”

He pursed his lips, eyed aflutter. “Dunno. She’s the best one to ask.”

Yaz cast a glance over to the Doctor, who hadn’t stirred. Something moved in her chest as it occurred to her that she might be falling asleep again.

Apparently, Graham had had the same thought, and he bustled over and plopped himself down on the step beside her, reaching up to pat her awkwardly on her shoulder. “You’re alright, poppit,” he murmured encouragingly, and by the look on his face a moment later, he wasn’t expecting her to lean into his shoulder.

Yaz simply grinned, and she and Ryan made their way over too, settling themselves on the floor at her feet.

The Doctor took a deep breath, finally cracking a smile as she sat up. “You’re all so good to me. I’m really grateful, you know that?”

There was a moment of pause as Graham patted her shoulder again, a mutual good feeling passing around. Then, he piped up, “Listen, I don’t wanna pressure you or nothing, but… what was that? Cos I don’t wanna let that happen again, and if we know more, maybe we can stop it.”

The Doctor shook her head sadly. “You can’t stop it. I’ve tried, trust me, but there’s no cure. Ryan’s right, by the way; that was sleep paralysis.” The confusion in their face prompted her to explain. “Alright, so basically, when you go into your deepest level of sleep – that’s REM sleep, if you’re wondering – your brain paralyses your body so you don’t move when you’re dreaming. Like a body off-switch! Otherwise, we’d all sleepwalk all night, acting out our dreams.

“Sleep paralysis is when your conscious brain wakes up before it can flick the off-switch back on – something in your dream or your environment causes the body to jump out of sleep prematurely. Then you’re stuck until it works itself out.”

“And then you hallucinate,” Ryan added. The team eyed him with a mixture of shock and confusion, then the Doctor nodded.

“Yeah… exactly! Like, just then, I could feel people touching me right here-” she gestured to her middle, along the line of her waistband “-but they weren’t actually there. It was probably my own hands.”

“It was definitely your own hands,” Ryan nodded with an amused smirk.

“What about your feet, though?” Yaz frowned curiously.

“My feet? Were they moving too? Probably the only part of me I could move – that sometimes happens.”

“This all sounds bloody frightening to me,” Graham grumbled.

The Doctor fixed him with a very serious stare. “Terrifying.” Then, she brightened. “Still, I’m all in one piece, aren’t I?”

Yaz bit her lip. “So, it’s happened before to you?”

“To me, yes, all the time. Happens to loads of people. Isn’t that right, Ryan?”

The whole team turned their eyes to him, and Ryan suddenly felt rather self-conscious. “It’s not a big deal,” he grumbled.

“Course it’s a big deal,” Yaz scowled. “If something scary like that is bothering you, we don’t want you going through it alone!”

Ryan shrugged. “Doesn’t really happen anymore, though.”

“Well, that’s an awful lie,” the Doctor chuckled, full of mirth. “I expected better from you, Ryan Sinclair.”

“It don’t! Not really. Just if I dream about…” He tailed off, but the silence told him they’d all got the idea. When his eyes had had time to dry and he looked back, he found the Doctor looking at him thoughtfully.

“I could rig a panic button, I suppose. Like a wrist watch, monitor your heart rate, set off your alarm clock if it goes too high.” She then screwed up her face in disgust. “Really! And I didn’t think of that for myself? Getting slow in my old age, I am.”

Ryan laughed at her. “Only if I can help you make it.”

The Doctor scoffed. “Like that wasn’t the only option!”

A calm silence held for a moment, then the Doctor stood and stretched out again. Yaz raised an eyebrow at her. “You look knackered.”

“Yup,” the woman yawned. “The worst part of the whole thing is how tired you feel afterwards. Waking up too fast, it’s bad for your body. Interrupts the natural sleep cycle.”

“So what are you gonna do now?”

By way of answer, the Doctor crossed the room, hopped over the back of the sofa, and settled back down into her dent in the cushions. Then her head reappeared, just for a second.

“Don’t go anywhere for a second, team. You know; just in case.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've not added any more to this recently! I was busy focusing on my other fic, Brain Fog, which is now finished and you should all definitely check out. Hopefully the next wait won't be so long!


End file.
